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Teachers serve as accessible personnel capable of identifying student vulnerability and suggesting resources and opportunities. To serve in this capacity, teachers need to identify vulnerabilities and know about resources. This study included 52 American and German preservice teachers (PSTs) who were given a scenario and asked to identify who needed help, label the vulnerability, and respond to the scenario. Findings indicated PSTs from both countries had limited insight into community resources, concerns regarding vulnerabilities, and predispositions toward vulnerable populations. Suggestions for providing PSTs with opportunities to understand complex social systems, connecting PSTs to services, and introducing systemsthinking within teacher education programs are offered.

Background: The living situation of single parents is often characterised by sole responsibility for family and household, problems in reconciling work and family life, and a high risk of poverty. In a comparative perspective with parents in partner households, the health of single mothers and fathers was analysed, considering differences in their social status. Methods: The analyses are based on data from the GEDA studies 2019 – 2023 (7,999 women, 6,402 men). Prevalences for single mothers and fathers and mothers and fathers living in partner households were calculated for self-rated health, chronic diseases, depressive symptoms, smoking and utilisation of professional help for mental health problems. In multivariate models, adjustments were made for income, education, employment status and social support, and interactions with family type were included. Results: Single mothers and fathers show higher prevalences for all health indicators in comparison to parents living in partner households. Also after adjustment, the differences between family types remain significant. The health of single mothers also varies partially with income, employment status and social support. Conclusions: Health promotion measures have to consider that single parents are a heterogeneous group. In addition to strengthening personal skills, policy and setting-based interventions aim to reduce health inequalities.

School discipline disparities for African American students in urban schools continue to be a topic of contention. While research has rightfully called into question the practices and preparation of teachers and principals, the role that assistant principals serve as disciplinary gatekeepers has gone relatively unnoticed in the literature. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of five assistant principals at two urban middle schools to ascertain how they addressed issues of race amid applying school discipline interventions for African American students. The findings are analyzed and discussed through a critical race theoretical framework.

BackgroundDifficult facemask ventilation is perilous in children whose tracheas are difficult to intubate. We hypothesised that certain physical characteristics and anaesthetic factors are associated with difficult mask ventilation in paediatric patients who also had difficult tracheal intubation.MethodsWe queried a multicentre registry for children who experienced "difficult" or "impossible" facemask ventilation. Patient and case factors known before mask ventilation attempt were included for consideration in this regularised multivariable regression analysis. Incidence of complications, and frequency and efficacy of rescue placement of a supraglottic airway device were also tabulated. Changes in quality of mask ventilation after injection of a neuromuscular blocking agent were assessed.ResultsThe incidence of difficult mask ventilation was 9% (483 of 5453 patients). Infants and patients having increased weight, being less than 5th percentile in weight for age, or having Treacher-Collins syndrome, glossoptosis, or limited mouth opening were more likely to have difficult mask ventilation. Anaesthetic induction using facemask and opioids was associated with decreased risk of difficult mask ventilation. The incidence of complications was significantly higher in patients with "difficult" mask ventilation than in patients without. Rescue placement of a supraglottic airway improved ventilation in 71% (96 of 135) of cases. Administration of neuromuscular blocking agents was more frequently associated with improvement or no change in quality of ventilation than with worsening.ConclusionsCertain abnormalities on physical examination should increase suspicion of possible difficult facemask ventilation. Rescue use of a supraglottic airway device in children with difficult or impossible mask ventilation should be strongly considered.

Heritable base-editing using a viral delivery system enables high-throughput functional analysis of genes in Arabidopsis.

IntroductionSmoking is a major risk factor for premature death and health problems in which there are significant gender differences in the prevalence of smoking. This ecological study examines the correlation between changes in gender equality and prevalence of smoking among young adults (15–25 years old) in Germany over a period of 45 years (1960–2005).MethodsGender inequality was measured using the United Nations Gender Inequality Index (GII), which is composed of three dimensions; health, empowerment and labour market. It was calculated for the entire registered German population in five-year intervals with values between 0 and 1 (1 = highest inequality). The smoking prevalence of young women and men in Germany was established using a reconstruction method. A gender smoking ratio (GSR) with values between 0 and 1 was determined (1 = identical smoking prevalence among men and women). The smoking behaviour was illustrated and stratified by education. The correlation between the GII and the GSR was analysed.ResultsThe GII decreased from 0.98 to 0.56 between 1960 and 2005. The GSR increased from 0.34 to 0.93. There was a strong negative correlation between the GII and the GSR (r = −0.71). The strength of the correlation fell slightly as the level of education decreased. An increase in gender equality as measured by the GII came along with similarities of smoking prevalence between young women and young men.ConclusionSuccessful tobacco prevention among young women and men may benefit from involving experts in gender-specific public health research to develop counter-advertising and gender-specific information as needed.

Background: In the scope of the nationwide obligatory school entrance examinations (SEE), a standardised assessment of the preparedness for school of preschool children takes place in the federal states of Germany. For this purpose, height and weight of the children are determined. These data are available in aggregated form at county level, but are not yet being regularly compiled and processed at national level for use in policy and research. Methods: In a pilot project, the indexing and merging of SEE data from 2015–2019 was tested in collaboration with six federal states. This was done using obesity prevalence at the time of the school entrance examination. In addition, prevalences were linked to small-scale indicators on settlement structure and sociodemographics from public databases, differences in obesity prevalence at county level were identified, and correlations to regional influencing factors were visualised. Results: It was feasible to merge SEE data from the federal states with little effort. The majority of the selected indicators were freely available in public databases. In an interactive, easily comprehensible and user-friendly Tableau dashboard for visualising the SEE data, it can be seen that obesity prevalences differ significantly between counties that are similar in terms of settlement structure or sociodemographics. Conclusions: Providing federal state SEE data and linking them to small-scale indicators enables region-based analyses and cross-state comparisons of similar counties and provides a data basis for continuous monitoring of the prevalence of obesity in early childhood.

Background: The health situation of people with a history of migration is influenced by a variety of factors. This article provides an overview of the health of people with selected citizenships using various indicators. Methods: The analyses are based on the survey ‘German Health Update: Fokus (GEDA Fokus)’, which was conducted from November 2021 to May 2022 among people with Croatian, Italian, Polish, Syrian and Turkish citizenship. The prevalence for each health outcome is presented and differentiated by sociodemographic and migration-related characteristics. Poisson regressions were performed to identify relevant factors influencing health situation. Results: Self-assessed general health, the presence of depressive symptoms, prevalence of current smoking and the utilisation of general and specialist healthcare differed according to various factors considered here. In addition to sociodemographic determinants, the sense of belonging to society in Germany and self-reported experiences of discrimination were particularly associated with health outcomes. Conclusions: This article highlights the heterogeneity of the health situation of people with a history of migration and points to the need for further analyses to identify the reasons for health inequalities.

Academic writing is a critical activity through which scholars establish their stature in the field with ensuing academic successes. These "successes" rely on conventions that determine what questions are important to ask, what is the most rigorous methodology to employ, what constitutes "good" quality writing, and who is our most important audience. We offer counterstories of how we, three mid-career women faculty of color, navigated conventions of academic writing. We unpack how some conventions limit rather than empower us to exercise our creativity and to claim writing for ourselves and for our communities. We employ counter-storytelling to document a collective reality and to reimagine what constitutes "good" academic writing. Our stories range from challenging dominant and mainstream norms of evaluation and research, to learning to find one's voice in writing, to navigating racist feedback in the peer-review process. Synthesizing across our cases, we conclude with recommendations for reimagining research communication.

Teacher preparation programs (TEPs) are tasked with preparing future teachers to be able to effectively work with diverse learners. For many, a focus on culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) supports this charge, thus an increased understanding of teacher educator perspectives and approaches to this work is necessary. The purpose of this study was to examine teacher educators' perceptions of CRP and how they engage their pre-service teachers in developing an understanding of the pedagogy. The findings presented here highlight frustrations teacher educators face with CRP as well as their hopes. Implications and recommendations are provided in efforts to help strengthen this area of TEPs.

Background: In 2020/2021, the COVID-19 pandemic and the protective measures associated therewith severely limited the opportunity to participate in prevention and health promotion measures. The article examines the utilisation of the measures and possible factors that are associated with a lower participation during these pandemic years. Methods: It is based on data acquired between March and August 2021 from the study ‘COVID-19 vaccination rate monitoring in Germany’ (COVIMO), a cross-sectional telephone survey. The data was used to examine the participation in preventive measures in the last 12 months in terms of sociodemographic factors and to analyse a decreased participation with regard to pandemic-related factors. The analysis sample includes individuals aged 18 years and over (n=3,998). Results: 63% of participants generally did not use these programmes, 7% indicated an unchanged participation, 28% reported having participated in fewer measures, and 2% in more measures. Men reported significantly more often than women that they generally do not participate in prevention and health promotion measures. A relevant pandemic-related factor for decreased participation of men was the less clearly perceived comprehensibility of the regulations against the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Conclusions: Prevention and health promotion should be part of the contingency planning in epidemically significant situations to prevent a decreased participation and to promote health and gender-related equal opportunities even in a crisis.

Background: The purpose of this study is to assess which minimally invasive colon surgery approach may be associated with the least 30- and 90-day inpatient readmission costs from a payer perspective. Methods: This retrospective claims analysis included adult Medicare and commercially insured beneficiaries who underwent minimally invasive sigmoid, left, or right colon surgery between January 2016 and December 2019. Two cohorts were created based on the use of near-infrared fluorescence (NIF) and were propensity-score matched 1 NIF:5 NoNIF. Four subgroups were then created based on the presence of robotics (R): NIF-NoR, NIF-R, NoNIF-R, and NoNIF-NoR. Results: A total of 50,148 patients were identified, of which 165 (0.3%) indicated the use of NIF and 49,983 (99.7%) did not. After propensity score matching, 990 patients were included (NIF cohort: 165; NoNIF cohort: 825). Of the 165 NIF patients, 87 were robotic-assisted and 78 were conventional laparoscopy. Of the 825 NoNIF patients, 136 were robotic-assisted and 689 were conventional laparoscopy. Postindex inpatient readmission costs were significantly different between the NIF and NoNIF cohorts with the NIF cohort having the lowest 30- and 90-day postindex readmission costs. Postindex readmission costs were also significantly different across the 4 subgroups at 30 and 90 days, with the NIF-NoR group having the lowest postindex readmission costs (all P

Background: Smoking is a significant health risk and the leading cause of premature death. Passive smoke causes the same negative effects on health as smoking, albeit to a lesser extent. The reduction of tobacco consumption and the protection against passive smoke are thus important health objectives. Methods: The study German Health Update (GEDA 2019/2020-EHIS) is a cross-sectional telephone survey (04/2019 to 09/2020) of the resident population in Germany with questions relating to the current smoking behaviour and relating to the passive smoke exposure. The analysis sample comprises 22,708 persons from 18 years of age. Results: 24.0% of women and 33.9% of men from 18 years of age smoke currently, at least occasionally. Among both sexes, adults from 65 years of age smoke significantly more rarely than adults in the younger age groups. 4.1% of adults, who do not smoke themselves, are subjected daily to passive smoke exposure indoors. This affects in particular young adults and men. There are educational differences in tobacco consumption and in passive smoke exposure to the disadvantage of adults from lower educational groups. Conclusions: In Germany, there is still a need for action for effective measures for tobacco prevention, smoking cessation and tobacco control policy, which are effective in all population groups and which take into account the concerns of socially disadvantaged groups.

Abstract Plant biotechnology is rife with new advances in transformation and genome engineering techniques. A common requirement for delivery and coordinated expression in plant cells, however, places the design and assembly of transformation constructs at a crucial juncture as desired reagent suites grow more complex. Modular cloning principles have simplified some aspects of vector design, yet many important components remain unavailable or poorly adapted for rapid implementation in biotechnology research. Here, we describe a universal Golden Gate cloning toolkit for vector construction. The toolkit chassis is compatible with the widely accepted Phytobrick standard for genetic parts, and supports assembly of arbitrarily complex T‐DNAs through improved capacity, positional flexibility, and extensibility in comparison to extant kits. We also provision a substantial library of newly adapted Phytobricks, including regulatory elements for monocot and dicot gene expression, and coding sequences for genes of interest such as reporters, developmental regulators, and site‐specific recombinases. Finally, we use a series of dual‐luciferase assays to measure contributions to expression from promoters, terminators, and from cross‐cassette interactions attributable to enhancer elements in certain promoters. Taken together, these publicly available cloning resources can greatly accelerate the testing and deployment of new tools for plant engineering.

The spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 and the containment measures associated therewith have changed many aspects of daily life. An impact on health even beyond infections itself is assumed as well. The health situation of the population in the first phase of the pandemic was thus analysed using data from the German Health Update (GEDA 2019/2020-EHIS). By continuing the survey, the analyses for 2020 are completed (n=26,507 participants), whereby the focus is now on the third phase of the pandemic (second wave of infection, gradual reintroduction of containment measures). The health indicators are presented on a monthly basis. As in the first phase of the pandemic, no pandemic-related changes were observed for tobacco smoking/ second-hand smoke exposure and for received/lack of/provided support. In contrast to the first phase of the pandemic, declines in utilisation of medical services and depressive symptoms are not observed in the third phase. The increase in body weight/body mass index after the first phase of the pandemic did not continue. The survey period allows for a comparison of the periods before and as of the pandemic situation. A decrease in the medical services utilisation and depressive symptoms as well as an increase in the body weight/body mass index is observed in the period from March 2020 to January 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic period from April 2019 to March 2020.

Sex/gender diversity is increasingly recognised by society and should be taken into account more in population-representative studies, as they are important data sources for targeting health promotion, prevention and care. In 2019, the Robert Koch Institute started a population-representative health survey with the study Health in Germany Update (GEDA 2019/2020-EHIS) with a modified, two-stage measures of sex/gender. The survey covered sex registered at birth and gender identity with an open response option. This article describes the aims, the procedure and the experiences with the operationalisation of sex/gender and the results. Out of 23,001 respondents, 22,826 persons are classified as cisgender, 113 persons as transgender and 29 persons as gender-diverse. 33 respondents were counted as having missing values. A survey of interviewers showed that the two-stage measures of sex/gender had a high level of acceptance overall and that there were only a few interview drop-outs. On the basis of previous experience, the modified query can be used for further surveys, but should also be adapted in perspective. For this purpose, participatory studies are desirable that focus on how the acceptance of measures of sex/gender can be further improved and how hurtful experiences in the context of the questions asked can be avoided.

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to describe the social characteristics, the health and living situation and the prevalence of behavioral risk factors of adult informal caregivers compared to non-caregivers in Germany.MethodsWe used data from the German Health Update (GEDA 2019/2020-EHIS survey) which is a cross-sectional population-based health interview survey conducted between 04/2019 and 09/2020. The sample comprised 22,646 adults living in private households. Three mutually exclusive groups of providing informal care or assistance were differentiated: intense caregivers (informal care ≥10 h/week), less-intense caregivers (informal care

Realizing the full potential of genome editing for crop improvement has been slow due to inefficient methods for reagent delivery and the reliance on tissue culture for creating gene-edited plants. RNA viral vectors offer an alternative approach for delivering gene engineering reagents and bypassing the tissue culture requirement. Viruses, however, are often excluded from the shoot apical meristem, making virus-mediated gene editing inefficient in some species. Here, we developed effective approaches for generating gene-edited shoots in Cas9-expressing transgenic tomato plants using RNA virus-mediated delivery of single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs). RNA viral vectors expressing sgRNAs were either delivered to leaves or sites near axillary meristems. Trimming of the apical and axillary meristems induced new shoots to form from edited somatic cells. To further encourage the induction of shoots, we used RNA viral vectors to deliver sgRNAs along with the cytokinin biosynthesis gene, isopentenyl transferase. Abundant, phenotypically normal, gene-edited shoots were induced per infected plant with single and multiplexed gene edits fixed in the germline. The use of viruses to deliver both gene editing reagents and developmental regulators overcomes the bottleneck in applying virus-induced gene editing to dicotyledonous crops such as tomato and reduces the dependency on tissue culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vegetative phase change is regulated by a decrease in the abundance of the miRNAs, miR156 and miR157, and the resulting increase in the expression of their targets, SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE (SPL) transcription factors. To determine how miR156/miR157 specify the quantitative and qualitative changes in leaf morphology that occur during vegetative phase change, we measured their abundance in successive leaves and characterized the phenotype of mutations in different MIR156 and MIR157 genes. miR156/miR157 decline rapidly between leaf 1&2 and leaf 3 and decrease more slowly after this point. The amount of miR156/miR157 in leaves 1&2 greatly exceeds the threshold required to specify their identity. Subsequent leaves have relatively low levels of miR156/miR157 and are sensitive to small changes in their abundance. In these later-formed leaves, the amount of miR156/miR157 is close to the threshold required to specify juvenile vs. adult identity; a relatively small decrease in the abundance of miR156/157 in these leaves produces a disproportionately large increase in SPL proteins and a significant change in leaf morphology. miR157 is more abundant than miR156 but has a smaller effect on shoot morphology and SPL gene expression than miR156. This may be attributable to the inefficiency with which miR157 is loaded onto AGO1, as well as to the presence of an extra nucleotide at the 5 end of miR157 that is mis-paired in the miR157:SPL13 duplex. miR156 represses different targets by different mechanisms: it regulates SPL9 by a combination of transcript cleavage and translational repression and regulates SPL13 primarily by translational repression. Our results offer a molecular explanation for the changes in leaf morphology that occur during shoot development in Arabidopsis and provide new insights into the mechanism by which miR156 and miR157 regulate gene expression.

Health-promoting behaviours are important at any age to prevent diseases and to promote well-being. Using data from GEDA 2019/2020-EHIS, a Germany-wide, representative survey, this article describes how often the adult population in Germany reports certain types of health-promoting behaviour in their everyday lives. The behaviours considered are nonsmoking, low-risk alcohol consumption, achievement of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendations on aerobic physical activity, at least daily fruit and vegetable consumption, and maintaining a body weight within the normal range. This article describes the proportion of people who report these behaviours in their everyday lives by gender, age and education level, the number of health-promoting behaviours each person reports and the most common combinations in which they occur. Young adults between 18 and 29 years are most likely to achieve a health-promoting lifestyle. The proportion of people who report at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week and a normal body weight is lower in later adulthood than among 18- to 29-year-olds. The recommendation to eat fruit and vegetables daily is implemented least often of all five aspects of health behaviour under study. Finally, women are more likely to lead a health-promoting lifestyle than men.